Grading Mike Barwis

Submitted by oakapple on

I do not doubt that Mike Barwis is a good Strength & Conditioning coach. How much better is he, than at other elite programs?

Michigan this year was not noticeably better conditioned than its opponents. I don’t think better conditioning was the obvious difference in any game. I don’t recall a game in which the Wolverines ground down their opponent in the fourth quarter.

In Michigan’s seven wins, excluding Bowling Green, the Wolverines were actually outscored (modestly) in the fourth quarter. (I exclude BG because the starters were no longer playing at the end of the game.) In their five losses, Michigan did outscore the opponents in the fourth quarter, but only by a total of 9 points—not a huge difference.

Michigan’s players certainly did not seem to be any less injury-prone than their opponents; if anything, they were more injury prone.

Although Barwis has clearly improved Michigan’s conditioning over the latter years of the Carr program, I do not see the evidence that he has made it a distinct advantage. All that one can say, is that it is no longer a liability.

ThWard

December 1st, 2010 at 11:10 AM ^

But - and this is frustrating to all of us - it's just too hard to tell what effect conditioning can have when the players in question are so young... that is, I expect frosh/sophs getting major run to be more injury prone, and we played predominantly underclassmen (or at least 50/50).  The Odoms/Woolfolk injuries appear to be unavoidable fluke things - and not sure how proper conditioning can affect concussions (Hemingway, Shaw, V. Smith, etc.).

 Frankly, scoring margin aside, I thought UM played their asses off late in games - closing gaps in the Iowa, Wisconsin and PSU games, before more seasoned talent held them off.

But, similar to the argument re: scheme v. talent on defense... and as much as I hate to always arrive at this conclusion - the sheer number of underclassmen getting run on this team makes it difficult to assess these things.

mgoSk

December 1st, 2010 at 11:16 AM ^

Assuming RR and co are still around next year, you'll start to see more results, I think, in the guys that have been in the program for 4 years. I can't remember the exact numbers, but there's still a fairly large portion of the starters and guys who contribute a lot who are underclassmen, be patient.

iawolve

December 1st, 2010 at 12:04 PM ^

At that age, it is more of a 18-24 month window for significant gains. I still think he is better than what we have had previously, just look at BG two years before and two years with. However, I don't know how superior he is to what is at OSU, Bama, etc. To me, the win is that pro athletes are actually coming back to train, which is a huge win for the program from a recruiting and connectedness standpoint. 

phd363

December 1st, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^

You also have to consider how long the players are in the strength and conditioning program.  Younger players are not as physically mature as older players.

lilpenny1316

December 1st, 2010 at 11:15 AM ^

...so he can only do so much. 

Our strength and conditioning program needed an overhaul and he brought that.  Former and current players love the changes. 

Put it this way: If our on-field results were determined by Barwis' work, we'd be in the BCS conversion the last three years.

MGoLongIsland

December 1st, 2010 at 11:17 AM ^

Michigan WAS noticeably better conditioned then our opponents this year. Rewatch games at the end of the 1st and 3rd quarters we ALWAYS SPRINT down the field to the new ball spot while the other teams walk slugglishly to the sideline

Magnus

December 1st, 2010 at 11:20 AM ^

A few things...

1.  Actually, I did think that we were better conditioned than most other teams.  Our kids were going hard from the 1st quarter through the 4th, whereas some other teams looked gassed early on.

2. If you look at our injuries, almost all of them involved broken bones or dislocated joints (Woolfolk, Floyd, Jones, Odoms, etc.).  Broken bones and dislocations are going to happen whether you're in good shape or not.  What we haven't seen much of is muscle pulls and tears, which is where strength and conditioning can really help.

3. Being outscored in the 4th quarter could be a function of many things.  In fact, I think it's more likely that opponents figured out Michigan's defense by then, and that Michigan's defenders lost their mental edge once they were already down by 20 points.  It's hard to stay "up" to play D when you're down by several scores.  I don't think the kids quit, but it's only natural to suffer a mental/emotion letdown late in games like that.

4. I don't think we were noticeably slower (as a whole team) than any of our opponents this year.  There are guys who lack great speed (Cam Gordon when he was at FS, Jordan Kovacs), but these guys are well muscled, faster, and in better shape than they were two years ago.

dwinning

December 1st, 2010 at 11:21 AM ^

I don't think 4th quarter or second half performance necessarily measures the performance of the S&C staff.  I mean, it's just as likely that it's only because of Barwis & Co's extraordinary efforts that the team played as well as it did.  Performance = [baseline talent] x [coaching] x [conditioning], you can't point to performance and tie it to one or the other thing without knowing the distribution of other factors. 

That said, I think you have to look at it more on a per-player basis.  Are players developing physically the way the coaches want them too?   I'd imagine that running the pace of offense that we do requires everyone on that side of the ball to be better conditioned than a normal offense (resting 10-15 seconds between plays rather than 30-40).  Don't know exactly if Barwis is BARWIS!! but I do know that you can't dismiss his performance based on late game team performance. 

bronxblue

December 1st, 2010 at 11:21 AM ^

If graded on the number of wolves he tamed on his way to work each day, A+1073!

Realistically, you can't read much into how the team performed and equate that to the training staff.  Listen, I think Barwis is great, but adding 40 lbs to your clean-and-jerk isn't going to make you better at maintaining your gap coverage or not falling for the counter-run.  Barwis's biggest asset is that he introduced a more modern approach to lifting and working out that probably helped turn guys like Kovacs and Lewan into better players at younger ages than they would have otherwise.  I know very little about Carr's S&C team, but all I heard was that the philosophy was a little behind the times and that the holdovers thought this current team's approach was more appropriate. 

Marvin

December 1st, 2010 at 11:23 AM ^

Pretty much every D1 school has a great S&C program. Not to say Mike Barwis isn't on the cutting edge of sports medicine and science, but that doesn't mean other schools don't also have amazing programs with well qualified people running them. So eat my sensible sandwich bitches!

UMfan21

December 1st, 2010 at 11:28 AM ^

Lewan had Clayborn sucking wind in the first quarter
<br>
<br>Just because our defense had mental lapses doesn't mean we were not conditioned. Mental lapses could come from youth, coaching, or any other reason for not knowing an assignment in addition to conditioning.

BlueintheLou

December 1st, 2010 at 11:30 AM ^

Most injuries don't come down to strength and conditioning. Strength and conditioning programs can help you avoid the overuse injuries, tendonitis, and help stave off sprains by having stronger muscles surrounding the areas. However, as Mike Martin and others have shown you can be as strong as an ox, but if you get hit the wrong way, at the wrong angle, it doesn't matter.

Serious injuries are so random that strength and conditioning can take it only so far. As Magnus pointed above, broken bones (Odoms, Woolfolk, Floyd) is just happenstance. Barwis can only do so much. I don't think he has any secrets to drastically enhance bone density and the precise angles how hits are made. Yet...

jerseyblue

December 1st, 2010 at 11:35 AM ^

One thing I found unsettling this year was on several occasions seeing a RB knock our LB's backward on impact and run for a couple extra yards. At that moment I think about the whole strength program and it's praises and then go "That shouldn't be happening right?" I am a Barwis fan but seeing that did make me uneasy.

Monocle Smile

December 1st, 2010 at 11:43 AM ^

don't win momentum battles. Mass and velocity do. If you hadn't noticed, we faced a decent amount of hamtastic running backs this year.

Kenny Demens in particular does a pretty good job generating enough impulse from a dead stop to prevent being trucked. He also has a lower center of gravity than some of our other linebackers. Mouton doesn't often get carried downfield, either.

I have yet to see a defensive player who hasn't gotten trucked by a running back ever in their career.

ImSoBlue

December 1st, 2010 at 11:47 AM ^

the poor defense or how many freshman had to play this year.  I'll bet this will not be a question next year when it won't be men vs. boys.

1) TOP will show that the unit on the field the most was also the weakest/youngest one.

2) Offense scores quick, so it didn't seam like we were ever grinding them down.

 

Clarence Beeks

December 1st, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^

The thing that frustrates me about observations that try to make a comment about the team's condition based upon the defense is that it completely ignores the way that our offense plays (i.e. the pace).  It's the same thing that Oregon does.  Both Michigan and Oregon have drives that are 10+ plays and take half the amount of time that "traditional offenses" take to run the same number of plays.  I don't recall ever seeing any of our offensive players gassed and have to take plays off or have to come out of the game.  Our offensive players are (and have to be) in flat out great shape to do that.  I don't think a lot of people (especially people that make comments like this OP has) understand just how demanding it is to run the offense as fast as they run it.  So while you can nitpick the defense's condition, the better indicator of over all team conditioning is to take a look at the performance of our offensive players compared to the opposition's defensive players on those long drives.

readyourguard

December 1st, 2010 at 11:56 AM ^

I don't think Barwis is significantly better or worse than any other S&C guy at any other major program.  The problem, as I see it,  is all the hype that came with his arrival. 

  • All the talk about the $1Million renovation
  • linemen that can stand on exercise balls and pass a medicine ball back and forth
  • pre-hab
  • and chocolate milk. 

Had there not been so much hype about this guy upon his arrival, I don't think many people would have a strong opinion one way or another.

That said, I give him a B.

 

Q

December 1st, 2010 at 12:58 PM ^

Barwis has molded the players into what Rodriguez wanted. If he wanted big maulers then Barwis could do that. He goes by the coaches preference.

Magnus

December 1st, 2010 at 1:13 PM ^

There was a post a few days ago about the size of our offensive linemen compared to the rest of the Big Ten and Notre Dame.  Ultimately, we're about average or maybe a couple pounds lighter across the line, but not enough to make a difference.  The linemen are bigger this year than they have been in the past couple seasons, and I think that's shown up on the field.  Michigan didn't allow many sacks, and there were running lanes of which to take advantage.

WojoRisin

December 1st, 2010 at 12:59 PM ^

I've had this conversation with a few people now. I'm not sure Michigan's players are injury prone, but it seems like this staff's philosophy on injuries is different from the previous regime. At any point when a player feels like they can't go 100% due to being hurt/injury, they go down on the field and the trainers come out. This makes it seem like more players are getting injured, but in reality most return to the field within a few plays or a series. Not that either way to approach injuries is wrong, but how they're being handled now is just different.

blueheron

December 1st, 2010 at 1:24 PM ^

OP: "Michigan this year was not noticeably better conditioned than its opponents."

How do you know that?  What are your methods of measurement?  Sounds murky at best to me ... very murky.

Farnn

December 1st, 2010 at 1:38 PM ^

It's hard to compare this team with others in respect to strength/conditioning because age plays a large factor. The players on teams like OSU and Wisconsin have had 4-5 years in a college strength program while some of Michigan's players have only had 6 months.

COB

December 1st, 2010 at 3:14 PM ^

I'm sorry man but you are not Georgia State.  You actually do have players that have been in the program for 2+ years and not all opponents are exclusively RS juniors and seniors.  This "we are all freshmen and they are all seniors" crap is horrendously overplayed by some of the UM fanbase. 

JimBobTressel

December 1st, 2010 at 1:41 PM ^

This is stupid. We went from behind the curve, with Gittleson in his late years, to caught up with the curve, which is where we are now.

 

We got outscored in the fourth quarter because our defense is not D-1 caliber, not because they were tired.

Elno Lewis

December 1st, 2010 at 2:07 PM ^

"Michigan this year was not noticeably better conditioned than its opponents. I don’t think better conditioning was the obvious difference in any game. I don’t recall a game in which the Wolverines ground down their opponent in the fourth quarter."

 

"Although Barwis has clearly improved Michigan’s conditioning over the latter years of the Carr program,"

 

 

Well, how does the OP make this statement then?